


At the Seams

by Bill_Longbow, Winifred_Zachery



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Body Worship, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Established Relationship, Fluff, Insecurities, M/M, Rating will change, Scars, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, they're gonna get lotsa hugs!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 14:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bill_Longbow/pseuds/Bill_Longbow, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winifred_Zachery/pseuds/Winifred_Zachery
Summary: At the seams, where we’re held together by stitches and sutures, we are particularly vulnerable. Tony and Bucky have more of those than most people. Luckily they both know how to deal with each other’s issues.





	At the Seams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [roseandthorns28](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandthorns28/gifts).



> Happy Birthday to our dear friend Roe who is always there for us for for enthusing about fandom and RL and who always has the perfect pic to liven up our rp! You truly are the Tony to our Steve and Bucky!

The damn thing is making noises again, just what Bucky needs. He’s had a bad week. He’s argued with Steve about Tony. He hates Steve being this protective. To be fair, Steve is very protective of them both but that doesn’t make things any easier.

Next he’s been having a hard time talking to Tony about several things that have been bothering him. Not in their relationship, fresh as that one still is. No, it’s about life in the tower, how the many mirrors in his own personal bathroom bother him. His therapist told him it’s important to claim the space as his and talk about the things he would like to change, but he doesn’t want to seem ungrateful. So he’s tried to bring the issue up several times, frustratingly without being able to pull through.

His sorely needed therapy session has been cut short due to a sudden attack on Coney Island, the worst of all possible locations because of the memories of himself and Steve the place evokes in him.

 

And now the fight has left him with a rattling arm and a deep-seated ache where the biomechanical transmitters meet his flesh.

So he grudgingly made his way down to the workshop, which he doesn’t love, even though his lover greets him with a kiss and makes him sit down in a comfortable armchair that he’s ordered especially to make Bucky feel more comfortable while he’s buried inside the mechanics of his metal arm.

Right now Tony has both arms inside him after having disconnected the bioneural feedback sensors. It’s not even this part that Bucky minds so much. It’s that he is shirtless with no distractions that make him forget about the ugly scars running along the seam where metal meets flesh. He’ll never be sure if some of them aren’t self inflicted, a thought that makes him shudder each time.

He’s been naked around Tony. They sleep together, they have sex together, they take showers together. But usually his lover’s attention isn’t as focused on his arm like when he works on it. Or Bucky is too distracted by whatever they’re doing together to pay his insecurities much heed. Tony can be very distracting when he wants to be.

Like this Bucky feels vulnerable, on display under the bright lights of the workshop, under Tony’s sharp eyes and mind. After two months Bucky is still scared his perfect lover will finally realise what a broken mess he is and leave him for a more perfect specimen of the human race.

Bucky gets drawn out from his musings when Tony pries apart several panels close to his shoulder. He jerks back instinctively, making Tony’s screwdriver lose traction so that it clatters onto the ground. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes hastily, voice more gruff than he means to from his anxiety.

 

Tony startles when Bucky suddenly jerks and he drops his screwdriver, making it fall to the ground with a loud clang where it rolls away. He barely managed to keep it from coming between two transistors and short circuiting the sensory input relay, but it’s Bucky’s voice that makes him go on high alert. He’s never short with Tony, ever, but now he sounds like he would rather be anywhere but here.

“Sorrys are not allowed, remember, Bronco?” He says as he picks up his screwdriver, studying Bucky from the corner of his eye. Bucky’s staring at his hands, but Tony will help Dum-E run for president if he’s actually seeing them. Tension radiates from every part of his body, from the clench of his jaw to the line of his shoulders, one higher than the other. Tony berates himself for not trying to make Bucky relax more before he got started. 

“Okay, change of plans. How about I put my tools down and we talk for a bit first? You said you liked me talking, I believe your exact words were ‘it’s fuckin’ hot’, please excuse my mediocre attempt at Brooklyn…” He sits back on his heels next to Bucky, looking up at him, hoping to put a smile on his face, even if it’s a tiny one. “So, have you seen the game yesterday?” 

 

Bucky actually has to smile a little at Tony’s terrible attempt at a Brooklyn accent. The man is just Manhattan through and through. But he is right. His voice relaxes Bucky on some occasions and makes him all hot and bothered on others. Well, sometimes he can be a tiny bit annoying but it’s usually good associations Bucky has with Tony’s voice.

He starts talking to Tony about the game that he’s actually watched with Steve. Not because Bucky greatly enjoys baseball but because his friend does and it’s just so much fun to rile Steve up by pretending he likes the other team. He knows Tony appreciates that. Between them they have the power to drive Captain America nuts, but they use their gift wisely, usually.

While they talk, first about baseball, then about Steve and heading into a discussion about Avengers team dynamics, Tony picks up working on his arm again, without Bucky even consciously noticing.

Bucky only notices as the twitch in his metal fingers lessens and then finally stops and the plates align perfectly once more. He watches as Tony puts everything back into place before connecting his bioneural network once again. There’s no pain anymore.

“How do you do this?” Bucky asks and watches as Tony’s hands run along the seam where flesh meets metal, steady and rough and warm against his skin. The sensation makes him shiver, not in revulsion this time.

 

“Hmm?” Tony loves running his hands over the metal of Bucky’s arm, loves how it warms to his touches, secretly in awe how the mad scientists somehow managed to create something that has endured decades and still looks beautiful. Of course he’s working on a new arm, just the schematics for now, and of course he has several upgrades in mind for the current arm, based on his observations. He can put those in production now that his peek in the arm’s innards has confirmed his calculations are spot on.

“Genius, remember, tech is my thing, and I’d be a lying liar who lies if I didn’t admit to having had some thoughts about your arm.” He looks Bucky in the eye as he presses a kiss to the upper arm, where the bicep would be in a regular arm. “Strictly PG, of course,” he grins, and kisses the seam where metal meets flesh. 

The scars there are an angry pink, probably because of the continuous weight of the arm pulling at them. He ducks into a drawer of his work bench and comes up with a tube of salve that he uses on his own scars. He puts some on his fingers and gently starts rubbing the salve into the scars, bit by bit, holding Bucky’s other shoulder as he works his way around the entirety of the arm. 

Bucky sighs under the engineer’s gentle hands. He keeps being amazed at Tony’s hands. They’re strong and rough with scars after one too many burns from a soldering iron. But at the same time they’re soft and gentle and precise, especially when dealing with Bucky.

When he’d first come to stay with the Avengers he’d been afraid of touch. No matter if it was friendly, well-meaning or concerned, he just couldn’t stand it. Didn’t deserve it.

But then came Tony. Tony, wo touched everybody indiscriminately, friends, lovers, children, men and women and non-binaries, skin, hair, cloth, doesn’t matter. He only stays away from people he doesn’t like.

Tony, who never liked to be touched in return except by very few people, something Bucky only learned later. First, he let Tony touch him and it thawed something inside him.

Now Tony’s touches are a promise, a gift that warms him from the inside out. Their relationship has started out slow, is still in its infancy, really, but they touch and they kiss and they trust each other with their bodies. Even if Tony still usually wears a shirt to bed. Bucky doesn’t mind.

Tony is the only one who is allowed to touch Bucky’s scars. Steve once tried, wanting to give his best friend a massage after an exhausting battle. Bucky is still sorry about the dent he left in the hangar wall which he threw Captain America into.

Tony sometimes gives him a massage, like he does today, to relax the muscle and the scars when they’re sore from the metal arm pulling on them constantly. It’s a bit of relief at the end of a long day. A bit of salvation after seventy years of ice and blood and pain.

One day Bucky will give something back to him. One day he’ll show Tony just how much this means to him.

 

When Tony’s done he puts the cap back on the tube and walks around to sit on Bucky’s lap. “Better, soldier?” 

Bucky’s answering smile makes Tony’s knees weak. Not just with lust, (even if Bucky is without a doubt several fantasies of Tony’s rolled into one very gorgeous package), but with affection as well. He feels humbled Bucky allows him to touch his arm, his shoulder and his scars. He’s in awe of Bucky’s bravery. He knows how much easier it is to pretend the broken parts aren’t there, to hide them out of sight. 

When he presses a gentle kiss to Bucky’s lips he decides that if Bucky can do this then so can he. Tonight he’ll sleep without a shirt. They've been fucking and cuddling and even had their first real fight last week, surely sleeping topless was just a minor thing. 

 

When evening comes and they’ve finished their movie and they’ve finished necking on the couch and are on their way to bed, Bucky is taken aback a little when he slides under the blankets of their bed and discovers naked skin instead of soft cotton.

He turns his head toward Tony and raises an eyebrow in question.

“You comfortable like this?” he asks, while running a searching hand up and down Tony’s bicep. It’s probably best to stay in safe territory till he knows what Tony’s intentions are.

Just the way Bucky reacts to Tony suddenly being without a shirt lets Tony know it was the right decision. He nods firmly, and puts his hand on top of Bucky’s, pulling it to his mouth to place a kiss on it, and then fold both their arms around his waist. “Very,” he hums.

He has to consciously relax, to tell his lizard brain that nothing is going to damage the reactor, that he’s as safe as he’ll ever be, and slowly he feels the tension drain from his muscles. Almost automatically he mimics Bucky’s deep breaths, and the way their chests move together is soothing enough for him to fall asleep more peacefully than he had in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this little chapter, why don't you come visit [Roe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandthorns28/pseuds/roseandthorns28) or [me (Wini)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winifred_Zachery) or join us at the [Stuckony discord server](https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n)!


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